


House Hunting For Pet Safety

by Weevilo707



Series: Every Important Day Is A Disaster [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Moving In Together, Pets, Taakitz Week, you don't need to read the other parts of the series to get this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 07:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16154747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Taako and Kravitz had been dating for a while now, and it just made sense at this point to move in together, especially after Lup had gotten her own place with Barry. Taako actually found himself excited for the change, maybe a little too excited. They might've rushed into this without thinking through all the little details.It turns out that pet birds and pet cats don't typically get along, so they were going to have to come up with some creative solutions.





	House Hunting For Pet Safety

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: 
> 
> Commitment  
> Pets & familiars (but not too familiar)  
> “You’re taking his side?”

The thing is, Taako should’ve known something was bound to go wrong. That’s just how his life fucking worked, and things had been on the up for way too long for there not to be a crash.

So of course, finally taking the huge fucking leap and moving in with his super hot super supportive and super sweet boyfriend wouldn’t go easy. Of course there would be this grievous fucking problem that Taako could see no easy work around.

“No Quee- ah, wings in my face, fucking- feathers in my mouth. This isn’t- Taako I don’t think this is working,” Kravitz said, trying and only barely succeeding in keeping the large bird in his arms. Taako hissed as cat claws sunk deeper into his arms, before finally managing to unhook them and put Istus back in her cat carrier.

“Yeah no shit,” he said, looking down at his cat, very poofy and pissed off in her cage. She still had her eyes locked on the equally puffed up bird in Kravitz’s arms, and gave another pissed off hiss. “Shoosh Issy I swear,” he grumbled.

“Come on, back- back in the bedroom for you,” Kravitz said, petting the bird to try and sooth her as he walked her back to his room. Their room, now. Queen still didn’t seem too happy about it, but she wasn't fighting him as much anymore. A minute later Kravitz came back, sighing and picking bits of feather fluff off his shirt.

“That could have gone better,” he said, and Taako rolled his eyes, leaving Istus in her carrier for now as he stood up.

“You don’t say babe,” he said, moving to cross his arms in a huff. He didn't actually manage to before the cuts all along his arm sting and he sucked in a breath. Kravitz only then noticed the mangled state his arms were in and practically jumped at attention.

“Oh fuck, are you okay? Come here I should have some disinfectant and bandages in the bathroom,” he said, leading Taako to the bathroom and pulling a first aid kit out of the mirror cabinet. Taako hopped up on the counter, just managing to avoid falling into the sink as he did.  

“It ain’t that bad, taking her outta the carrier was a mistake though,” he said, holding out an arm. Kravitz started to slowly dab the cuts with disinfectant, and Taako did  _ not _ wince at the stinging.

“Yeah, this… hmm,” he hummed, and Taako started looking through the bandages as he worked on his cuts. Aw, no cartoon ones or cute designs, that’s no fun. He’d have to go out and grab some new ones now that he was living here. “I’m not sure how this is gonna work,” he finished, and Taako sighed heavily at that.

“Uhuh, I’m not too sure what the fuck we were thinking would happen there,” he admitted.

“That they’d get along great and we wouldn’t have to worry about the fact that birds and cats don’t typically get along?” Kravitz said, and Taako shrugged. He’d finished up bandaging the cuts along one arm. Taako rolled his eyes, still smiling despite himself when Kravitz leaned in and kissed one of the bandages before moving to his other arm. This one wasn’t as bad, since it had been the one keeping the cat in place and not the one trying to fend off her claws.

“I mean, that woulda made shit a lot easier,” he said, and Kravitz nodded in agreement. “So uh, what now? Since that’s clearly not what’s going on here,” he asked.

“I don’t really know. I guess we can try to slowly introduce them to each other, but I’m not sure if it’ll work or not. Birds and cats don’t  _ typically _ get along,” he said, and Taako frowned as he thought it over.

“We can probably keep our daughter in her cage while Lucy gets used to the place,” he said. He’d taken to calling Queen their daughter as soon as he met her as a joke, and now it was kind of second nature. He didn’t see a problem with his suggestion, but Kravitz was frowning at him for some reason.

“Queen doesn’t have a cage,” he said.

“What do you mean she doesn’t have a cage?” Taako asked, because that didn’t sound right. Birds lived in cages, that was a thing he was fairly certain about.

“Have you ever  _ seen _ a cage?” Kravitz asked. Which was a fair question, but Taako still pouted.

“No, but you coulda had one and just, I don't know, not have it set up,” he tried. It was a flimsy argument, but that wasn’t important. “Anyway, why doesn’t she have one? I thought that was like, a bird requirement,” he asked.

“She has a spot set up with a curtain in my room, but she doesn’t need a cage. She’s trained enough not to try to escape and I prefer giving her the freedom. Your cat doesn’t have a cage,” Kravitz explained. He’d finished up Taako’s other arm finally, and so he drew it back and crossed them at that last comment.

“Cats don’t live in  _ cages, _ babe,” he said.

“Well I don’t see why birds should have to,” Kravitz argued. Taako couldn’t say much to that and instead hopped off the bathroom counter.

“Let’s just finish bringing my stuff in. We can figure out what to do with Queen and Istus when all my expensive shit isn’t lying out in your yard,” he said, starting back towards the living room. Kravitz had an amused look on his face as he followed after him.

“Your stuff is in a secure car Taako, we didn’t leave it strewn across the yard like a bargain bin yard sale,” he said. Taako ignored that, because they still needed to get a move on and get him moved  _ in _ anyway.

That took most of the rest of the day. It wasn’t like Taako hadn’t already been moving his stuff over to Krav’s place slowly but surely, but it was still a lot of work, and manual labor was not one of Taako’s specialties.

He’d been thinking about this for a while though. He never had much of a problem affording his old apartment, even after Lup had moved out to get her own place with Barry. There had been an adjustment period though, which was when he’d gotten Issy. It was weird, being alone in a silent house so often. The cat helped fix some of that.

Slowly but surely though he’d been spending more and more time at Kravitz’s place. After a while it seemed kind of dumb  _ not _ to move in together. Why pay for two places when they really only needed one? What was the point of going back to his own place if he was just gonna be lonely and looking for an excuse to go back over to Krav’s or visit Lup and Barry? There wasn’t one.

It still took about a year after coming to this conclusion for him to say anything to Kravitz, but once he got that out of the way shit happened fast. He was kind of under the impression that Kravitz had been looking for a way to say something for a while too.

Maybe it all moved a little too fast, since they still had no fucking clue what to do about their respective pets.

“I’m gonna let Istus out of her cat carrier for the night so she can stretch her legs and get comfortable with the place, that cool? I figure we’re keeping Queenie in the bedroom with us tonight anyway,” he said, and Kravitz nodded.

“That sounds good dear. I guess we just need to be careful to keep them in separate rooms for now until we can think of something better,” he said. With that Taako let Istus out of her carrier, the cat meowing complaints at him until he set up her food and water bowls. Once that was done he gave her a few good scritches as she ate before standing up and stretching with only a slightly exaggerated yawn. “Okay, cha’ boy is beat as fuck. I’m not doing anything for a month,” he said.

“We need to put a lot of this stuff  _ away _ tomorrow, Taako,” Kravitz said, but Taako waved that away.

“Sleep now, doing shit later,” he said, and Kravitz laughed a little at that.

“On that, we’re agreed,” he said. Taako followed him into the bedroom, and luckily Queen didn’t try to escape. She also seemed a lot less frazzled than she had when Kravitz first brought her in here. Kravitz headed over to her, giving her a few pets before setting out her own dinner. While he did that Taako dug through one of his boxes of clothes until he found a big t-shirt to sleep in.

“Okay so, what are we gonna do about our little pet problem? Cause keeping em apart is a good temp solution, but I don’t want one of us to fuck up one day and come back to our daughter as just a couple tufts of feathers around my dear, sweet Issy’s mouth,” Taako asked as he got changed.

“I’m not sure why you’re assuming Queen would lose that fight, but yeah it is a problem,” Kravitz said.  

“My dude, when it comes to cats and birds, birds very rarely come out the victor. This ain’t a Tweety and Sylvester situation here,” he said. Queen flew over to him once she finished eating, and Taako scuffled her feathers some. “Isn’t that right girl? You’d be a chicken dinner in ten seconds flat, wouldn’t you? Wouldn't you?” he said, speaking in a baby voice to the raven. The bird squawked happily and Taako looked up at Kravitz with a grin. “See, she agrees with me.”

“You’re taking his side? Really? You do realize that ends with you as a feather duster,” Kravitz jokingly asked the bird.

“She understands her limitations,” Taako said with a shrug.

“Well, I’d rather not put this argument to the test, so we should really figure something out soon,” Kravitz said, and Taako nodded in agreement. They couldn’t leave them alone together, at least not in any near future, and getting rid of either of them was out of the question. So, they’d have to be creative.

“Of course babe, we’ll figure something out,” he said, putting Queen down on the side table before laying down in bed. “But first, c’mere, can’t think of a clever plan with no sleep,” he added, making grabby hands towards Kravitz for good measure. His boyfriend laughed, but dutifully walked over and crawled into bed with him.

“Right, we’ll figure it out in the morning,” he said, and Taako could feel him press a kiss to the top of his head. Yeah, this was... this was  _ good. _ Knowing he wouldn’t have to get up and leave in the morning was real fucking good. They’d figure everything else out soon enough.

They did not, actually, end up figuring everything out ‘soon enough.' It ended up taking a long fucking time, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of fun bandages with the colorful patterns and cartoon characters.

Keeping the animals apart was the first and easiest thing to try, but they both knew it wasn't tenable, so they had to find another solution. Sectioning the house off to the cat only being allowed in certain rooms and the bird in the others didn’t work too well either. Queen liked to ride Kravitz’s shoulder around the apartment, and Istus tended to dart into rooms after Taako.

Magnus suggested they split the apartment horizontally, with a big area up at the ceiling for Queen. Taako was honestly a fan of the idea, but Kravitz wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of having to crouch constantly.

They tried slowly introducing them to each other, keeping them in the same room but separated. The instant desire to attack each other did seem to lessen some, but it still wasn’t anywhere close enough for them to feel comfortable leaving the two animals alone.

“Babe,” Taako said, after a couple months of slowly trying to work through these problems. Queen was sectioned off in the bedroom for the moment, and they’d been watching TV, Istus in Taako’s lap and trying to destroy his sleeve.

“Mhmm?” Kravitz asked, not looking away from the screen. Which was fair, they were about to announce who was kicked out of round two of cutthroat kitchen. Taako had already seen this episode though, or else he’d be paying more attention too.

“I think we need a bigger house,” he said. Kravitz nodded absently in agreement. Then what Taako said seemed to process in his head and he quickly turned towards him.

“What?” he asked, and he didn’t sound upset or anything, so far so good. Just real confused, which was fair.

“I think we need a bigger house, or like, an actual house. Instead of an apartment. If we got something with high ceilings we could do that bird walkway for Queen, and like, we could get a patio for her to hang in too that Istus wouldn’t be allowed into. And maybe if they were seeing each other all the time like that they would chill out even faster,” Taako explained. His face felt kind of hot, but he didn’t know why. It was a smart idea. Kravitz was staring at him though, and it was hard to tell what he was thinking.

“That… I mean, that sounds nice,” Kravitz said. It was obvious there was still something on his head though. “That sounds  _ really nice _ Taako, but it’s- buying a house is kind of a big commitment,” he added, and Taako nodded.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess so. Houses aren’t typically impulse buys, we’d have to like, plan shit, and I get it if you’re not down, since it hasn’t been  _ that long _ since I moved in and all. I was thinking out loud really. It might make shit easier but yeah it’s kinda out there, I get it,” he said, speaking a little bit faster than was normal for him. He’d already turned back to the TV, even though it had switched over to commercials.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Kravitz said after a moment, and that got Taako’s head shooting back towards him. Casually. This whole thing was very casual.

“Is that so?” he asked, and Kravitz nodded. He looked kind of nervous, not that Taako had any idea why that might be.

“Yes, I uh, I think it would help Queen and Istus a lot,” he said, and Taako nodded quickly.

“Right, for Queen and Issy,” he said. It was kind of awkward, although it shouldn’t be. They’d already moved in together, buying a house wasn’t  _ that _ much bigger of a step. It was just a lot more expensive, and would probably require getting a mortgage. Taako wasn’t sure how those worked, but he’d heard the words ‘twenty five year, thirty year,  _ fifty year _ mortgage’ thrown around before.

Totally not a big deal.

Even though it absolutely wasn’t a huge deal, it still took a couple more months before they managed it. Which still seemed way too fucking fast. Taako had barely unpacked all his shit before he was throwing it back into boxes. Along with all of Kravitz’s stuff. To be fair, it was hard as fuck to find a house with everything they wanted that was actually in their price range. So once they did it made sense to jump on it as soon as possible.

By the time they’d had everything settled and ready to move they’d been living together for almost nine months anyway. That was practically a year. They’d been dating for three now, four this coming Candlenights. Really, they weren’t rushing at all.

Besides, Lup had no right teasing him for moving quick when her and Barry got married after almost less than a year of dating. Taako didn’t care how long they’d been pining beforehand, that was still  _ fast.  _ He and Kravitz weren't married yet, because they were sensible people.

Taako might've thought about it a few times, but with all these moves they didn't have the money for it anyway.

“Magnus says he can be by Sunday to start work on the bird walkways,” Kravitz said, dropping what appeared to be a very heavy box in their new kitchen. It wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than the kitchen in their apartment had been, so Taako was happy enough with it.

“Sounds good my guy,” Taako said, starting to work on unpacking pots and pans and other assorted kitchenware. They were definitely getting some form of fast food tonight, but setting up the kitchen was still one of the first things Taako wanted to do. Plus, it was a way to be productive without having to actually carry in shit.

That evening they both crashed on the couch after ordering pizza. Kravitz slumped on top of him in an exaggerated heap, and Taako made a pathetic show of trying to push his sweaty, smelly boyfriend off before giving up.

“Hey, have you seen Queen?” Kravitz asked after a moment, and Taako shook his head.

“Nah, figured she was exploring the place. Istus is in her carrier tho, don’t worry,” Taako said. He’d gotten a much bigger carrier than the one he’d used when moving to Krav’s apartment. It was more like a doggy crate, (because it was a dog crate, he’d borrowed it from Magnus) and so he figured she’d be fine in there for a couple of hours.

“Um, Taako?” Kravitz said, and it was a tone of voice that meant Taako would probably have to  _ do _ something. He groaned, burrowing his head further into Kravitz’s neck.

“Is it important?” he asked, and he could feel Kravitz nodding.

“Yes, a little bit,” he said, and Taako could hear an edge of amusement in his voice now. Reluctantly Taako sat up some, and Kravitz pointed over to where they’d left Istus’s cage.

Queen was sat on top of the crate, and Taako  _ would’ve _ expected Istus to be freaking out at that. The spaces between the metal bars were big enough for her to stick her paws through easily, the cat shouldn’t have any problem getting a hold of the bird like that.

But she was just sort of ignoring her. Without saying anything, Taako got up off the couch, Kravitz following after him. When they headed over to the cage, Queen looked up at them but didn’t move from her spot. Taako thought maybe Istus was asleep, but she lazily got up, stretched and meowed at the door. When it looked like Kravitz was prepared to grab Queen the second it seemed like something would go wrong, Taako opened the door.

Istus slowly walked out of the cage and started sniffing around the new house. After a moment, Queen seemed to get bored of her spot of the cage and fluttered up to Kravitz’s shoulder. Istus stiffened at the sudden movement of the bird, but unlike every other time, didn’t attempt to lunge at her, going back to her exploring after a moment.

Taako doubled over laughing.

“Holy shit- oh my fucking- I guess you can tell Mags we don’t need him to stop by Sunday anymore,” he managed out between bursts of laughter. As soon as he was under control he went over and scooped the cat up in his arms. She seemed mildly annoyed, but no more so than usual when he’d do this.

“I guess they have been steadily getting along better,” Kravitz said, still sounding rather disbelieving. “I mean, we should still keep an eye on them, but…” he added, and Taako wiped away a few laughter induced tears before nodding.

“Yeah, fucking perfect timing, god damn,” he said, and Kravitz chuckled some before nodding in agreement.

“Perfect timing,” he echoed. Taako put Istus down, letting her explore more of the house and headed back over to the couch. Kravitz followed after him, Queen seeming content to stay on his shoulder.

“I’m still glad we did this,” Kravitz said after a small stretch of silence between them. There was such a sincerity to his voice that it left Taako speechless for a moment. After what was hopefully not too awkward of a pause Taako managed to nod.

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed, and he really was happy with this decision.

He was kind of glad Istus and Queen didn’t stop fighting until now. It was nice having the excuse. 

**Author's Note:**

> day two of taakitz week! the prompts included pets, so I had to go back to the worst candlenights universe and include Queen again. I love this good good bird. Yes, after they start dating Kravitz eventually pulls Taako into DnD and he also names his pet after a god, because these boys are both huge fuckin nerds. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy~


End file.
